Laura Ingalls Wilder, Where Did I Go Wrong?

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syrup and snowThis time, I’m afraid, there’s simply no hope of convincing the neighbors that I’m not completely insane. This morning at 7 a.m., I was outside in the swirling snow, shaking snow from a shrub into a cake pan, a bottle of maple syrup clamped tightly in one armpit. I am thirty-one years old, but the vestiges of my Little House on the Prairie fetish are still on display for everyone on my block to see.

When I was very young, my sister read the entire Little House series out loud to me, and man, did I love it. Sure, Mary was kind of a bore, but Laura was clever and charming and brave—all things that wee Shannon aspired to be. And I was enthralled with the idea of pioneer life. If my family ever had to move into a sod house for some reason, I was prepared to milk a cow, knit some mittens, and whip up some corn pone in order to help us through the long winter. I went so far as to insist that my parents buy me the Little House on the Prairie Cookbook, which explained how to make delicious treats like hardtack.

Laura and MaryFast forward to a few weeks ago, when New York was on the cusp of getting its first real snowstorm of the season; a scene from the first Little House book came back to me in a flash. Hadn’t Laura made maple candy by dripping syrup on fresh snow? Wouldn’t it be a hoot to do it myself? Alas, the timing of that storm was all wrong, and by the time I was out and about the next morning, it had turned to rain and slush. So this time, when I woke up to a couple of inches, I was determined to make it happen. Mind you, I haven’t read the book in question, Little House in the Big Woods, in well over two decades and my copy of the cookbook is probably still in a crate somewhere in my parents’ house, but as I remembered it, they just packed some snow in a pan, drizzled syrup over it in snazzy designs and—Voila! Candy!

In actuality, this is not what happens when you put maple syrup on snow. Continue reading →

Sorta Kinda Chinese Tea Series Entry Two: Sesame Black

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I can’t say with Gospel certainty (let’s stop and laugh at that for a second…) if sesame black tea predates the bubble tea I wrote about last week.  But I suspect it does.  We were eating sesame seeds at least 5,050 years ago.  The Assyrian gods celebrated their Creation by drinking sesame wine.

So sesame black tea with milk needs no gimmick like gelatinous bubbles or Rainbow Brite-colored mega straws!  No, it can be mixed up in a Chinatown bakery, in particular this morning the Dragon Land Bakery across from the perma-shuttered and dragon-topped NYC tourist booth on Canal Street.  The woman behind the counter spoons some of the black sesame tea powder (available on Amazon; who knew?) into my cup, fills the cup with hot water and milk, and drops in a Hong Kong Style-brand Ceylon tea bag.  The exchange takes some miming, fruitlessly precise articulation, and one mistake, but the two of us get the job done.

I take my seat at “Tiny Dancer” replaces “Grease” over the radio.  Everyone else here is speaking, reading, and looking Chinese.  They’re also middle aged or older.  Have all the young people turned completely to the novelty tea shops?  Am I into an old-person’s tea? Continue reading →

A Fair Fight?: Not-So-Fun Facts from “A Food Designed to Addict”

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scooby-snackI’m not sure anyone who loves to eat as much as I do can properly call herself a health nut. I did, after all, write a wistful tribute to Dairy Queen Blizzards on this blog just a couple of weeks ago. And I do have a deep belief in free will and the necessity of people taking responsibility for their own actions. (When I got called for jury duty on a personal injury lawsuit, the corporate defense attorney found me delightfully amusing before the plaintiff’s lawyer dismissed me.) Those two facts combined mean that I often have mixed feelings in the junk food debate. Yes, I like Cheez-Its, but I don’t eat them every day, and that kind of restraint doesn’t feel all that difficult. So should we really be able to hold food companies responsible for the obesity epidemic?

Well…actually, maybe we should, at least partly. A recent article in the New York Times magazine by Michael Moss makes a compelling case that the public doesn’t stand much of a chance against the unhealthy foods that the junk food kings are pushing. Really, you should just go read the actual article right now. But for the record, here are the tidbits that I found most interesting…and disturbing:

The Bliss Point
Any Malcolm Gladwell fans out there will already know about Howard Moskowitz, the guy who revolutionized the food market by testing in excruciating detail every possible permutation of a product (61 versions of Vanilla Cherry Dr. Pepper, say, to find the perfect balance of vanilla and cherry and, um, pepper-ness). He calls that balance the “bliss point,” and he finds it through surveying thousands of taste testers and crunching the numbers across dozens of factors. Which is all rather fascinating, but here’s the nagging thought I couldn’t get out of my head as I read about his process: can you think of anything that sounds less like cooking? Continue reading →

Grub Match: Foodie Throwdown in the Nation’s Capital

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grub match DC

If the stereotypical New Yorker is loud and rude, what’s the stereotype of someone from Washington, D.C.? If the first D.C. Grub Match is any indication, that person is driven, discerning and a model of good taste. Also, a tall, skinny white female whose name begins with M. And so it was that I found myself deep in the heart of Alexandria with Martha, Mignon and Margaret as they prepared to fight it out for the title.

Round 1: Lyon Hall (Martha’s pick)
Things got off to a smooth start with high praise of the food at Lyon Hall. The word “amazing” was used liberally to describe everything from the sausage to the spaetzle. Though the menu is rife with pork products, even our vegetarian contender Mignon found plenty to like at Lyon Hall, particularly the happy hour specials like the warm pretzels with three different dipping sauces and the pickled vegetables that change weekly.

Margaret did find a few weak spots on the menu, however: “When it came to the cassoulet I was a little disappointed because they didn’t cook it all together, they put some stuff on the side…the whole point is that everything is mixed and delicious together.” Also, she felt that the dessert selection didn’t live up to the high standard set by the savory dishes. Even so, Lyon Hall managed to dodge any serious punches during this round.

Interlude: Vince makes a guerilla grab for the title.
Here’s another difference between a New York Grub Match and the D.C. version: in NYC we make do with beer at a bar, while in D.C., Vince, Martha’s paramour, makes a seriously bitchin’ brunch for everyone. He actually baked loaves of brioche two days beforehand for the express purpose of making it into French toast topped with berries and freshly whipped cream. Which begged the question: was he trying to upend Grub Match by being some sort of dark horse candidate? Things just got interesting. Continue reading →

What Will Arizona Eat?

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Because Shannon is badass, she bought me horseback riding lessons as a combined Christmas-birthday gift.

I love horses.

I love them with something approaching the ardor of an 8-year-old girl.

You spend time with horses and you realize that they have a connection to humans that no other animals save dogs can claim.  The history of their existence is inextricably tied up with ours, and you can sense that when around them.  Learning to work with a horse can open a window into the ways our species is and has been connected to the natural world all around us, a window all the more important given how rapidly we are burying our sense of that integration under bells and whistles and hustle, hustle, hustle.

I wanted some of that, and Shannon hooked me up.

And soon I found myself hooking up the horses. Continue reading →

Judging Beer by Its Cover

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I believe most of my bookish friends will back me up when I assert that YES, in fact, you CAN judge a book by its cover. I hold that that the same does NOT hold for beer; in fact, many of my favorites have downright ugly labels. (Ahem, Dogfish Head.) But I’d like to share some of my favorite tasty, artsy beers because they look good all lumped together. What follows is a mix of well-illustrated, graphic, eye-catching, and imaginative label art. Click the image for a better look at it; web addresses are below.

This is making me drool a little. I’m sure there’s more out there I’ve yet to taste–what’s your favorite beer label?

*Beers left to right, top to bottom:
Flying Dog (Ralph Steadman!)
Left Hand Brewing
Pretty Things Beer and Ale Project
Sixpoint Brewery
Oskar Blues Brewery
Surly Brewing
Brooklyn Brewery
The Duck-Rabbit Craft Brewery
Cisco Brewers
Redhook Brewing
Southern Tier
Rogue Brewing

Margaret’s Grub Match Pick: Crème Café & Lounge

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cremeThe third and final contender in our special Washington D.C. edition of Grub Match is international attorney and chicken and waffles aficionado Margaret Dennis. Her pick is Crème, a brunch favorite in the northwest quadrant of the city that serves up Southern specialties. Here’s more from Margaret on why she loves both comfort food from home and surprises from abroad:

Do you have any food pet peeves?
“Artistic” (i.e., tiny) portions.  I’m all for savoring my food and not wolfing it down like I’m starving, but if I’m paying to eat out I’d like to leave full.

You’re headed to a deserted island to live on grass and coconut milk–what’s your last meal before you go?
A deliciously prepared cassoulet.  You really can’t beat it on a cold winter’s night.

You’ve come into uncountable gobs of money—who do you hire as your personal chef?
Deb Perelman of the Smitten Kitchen food blog.  Not only are all of her recipes outstandingly delicious, she always has amusing commentary, and I feel that would be a useful trait if someone were standing in your kitchen all day making food.

What’s the single most memorable meal you’ve ever eaten?
That’s pretty hard to pick.  I’ll go with one key memorable one.  When I was 15, I spent the summer with a family in a tiny village in Alsace, France.  At one point we went over to the grandmother’s house for homemade tarte flambé cooked in her grandmother’s clay oven.  It was one of the first time’s I’d been abroad and I’d never realized food could taste that different from what I was used to in the U.S….and that fabulous. Continue reading →

Sorta Kinda Chinese Tea Series Entry One: Taro

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I’m not sure how far bubble tea has made it out of our big cities.  In case it hasn’t made it to your locality: bubble tea, invented in Taiwan in the ‘80s, is tea (sometimes kinda maybe) that is filled with tapioca balls, which are little gelatinous spheres approximately a quarter inch in diameter.  Bubble tea is thus usually served, whether hot or cold, with oversized straws that can accommodate the “bubbles.”  These straws are typically whimsical shades of purple or pink or green.  The cups are frequently adorned with cartoon creatures that defy classification except to say that, by virtue of including features like a single eye or a blob shape or the power to bounce and blink without the use of any limbs, they are distinctly Contemporary Asian.  The only Western cartoon counterpart I can think of is the blob that used to bounce unhappily beneath a rain cloud in that Zoloft commercial.

Bubble tea, in short, is meant to be fun.  It is to tea what a Frappaccino is to coffee.

And it is just one kind of many tea drinks I have discovered living in a city with a large East Asian population.  Bubble tea seems to frequently contains no real tea.  Other “tea” drinks served either at tea shops or Chinese bakeries contain only milk or something called “creme” or water mixed with assorted powders the color of Willy Wonka products.

One of my favorites is sesame black milk tea.  It involves steeping a black tea bag in a cup of hot water and milk and stirring in some kind of magic sesame powder.  I had that again the other day while eating a Chinese cream bun that immediately made me feel as if I had swallowed half of a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon. Continue reading →

Martha’s Grub Match Pick: Lyon Hall

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Our second contender in the Washington D.C. Grub match is Martha Bowen, international relations guru and future ambassador to Indonesia. Her pick is Lyon Hall, a hotspot of homemade mustard and cured meats. Here’s more from Martha, including why you should never underestimate the power of a good bathroom:

lyon hallIf you could eat only one thing for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Tomatoes. Raw, California-fresh with just a little salt, drenched in olive oil, sidling up to some glorious cheese. I love them.

Do you have any food pet peeves?
People who won’t try new foods.

You’re headed to a deserted island to live on grass and coconut milk–what’s your last meal before you go?
Carnitas made by Vince. (Editor’s note: Vince is Martha’s significant other and possible Grub Match Secret Weapon.)

Have you ever worked at a restaurant?
Yes, several, but only in national parks – Mt. Rainier in Washington State and Denali in Alaska. So I only really understand serving to tourists, where you have to be able to talk like a park ranger while serving up ridiculous quantities of clam chowder. Continue reading →

Squirrel Stews of Our Forefathers: Oddities in Presidential Eating

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rushmore

Jefferson is thinking, "Seriously, Abe, you should check out this waffle iron I found in Holland."

Presidents’ Day is one of those holidays that I have too often let slip by without much notice, so this past week I resolved to make it a more personal experience. Given my obsessions with food, I landed on the presidential page of foodtimeline.org and quickly became entranced. Food Timeline is a dizzying array of food trivia, all compiled and maintained by a single reference librarian who, it would seem, likes to eat. Let’s go ahead and get the criticism out of the way: it is not the sexiest of websites. The whole thing is an off-putting beige color, over which is a seemingly endless scroll of text. In fact, I’m pretty sure the only target audience (other than me) is the average elementary school child saddled with an interactive social studies report. I know this because the page devoted to presidents is peppered with advice like, “Need to make something for class? How about President Taft’s beloved almond snack?” and “NOTE: boiling fat is very dangerous. Adult supervision is strongly recommended.”

Nevertheless, I find Food Timeline riveting. As might be expected given the privileged, gentlemanly upbringing of our early presidents, there are a more than a few gourmets among the bunch. Jefferson loved bringing the discoveries of his European travels home with him, making his table a cornucopia of French sauces and Dutch waffles and Italian cheeses. Chester A. Arthur brought a French chef with him to Washington. And Dolley Madison, by all accounts, could throw a seriously fab dinner party.

It isn’t that evidence of discriminating gustatory taste makes me think less of these presidents. But far more endearing, I think, are the presidential foods that are commonplace or even rather lowly. Isn’t that one of our mightiest democratic fantasies—the greatness in every man, and an everyman behind greatness? Continue reading →